this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Conservative

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A place to discuss pro-conservative stuff

  1. Be excellent to each other. Civility, No Racism, No Bigotry, No Slurs, No calls to violences, No namecalling, All that good stuff, follow lemm.ee's rules, follow the rules of your instance, etc.

  2. We are a Pro-Conservative forum. Posts must have a clear pro-conservative, or anti left-wing bias. We are interested in promoting conservatism and discussing things that might get ignored elsewhere. All sources are acceptable, however reputable sources with a reputation for factual reporting are preferred.

  3. Dissent is allowed in the comments, but try to be constructive; if you do not agree, then provide a reason which is backed up by references or a reasonable alternative interpretation of the provided facts. That means the left wing is welcome to state their opinions, but please keep it in good faith.

A polite request, not a rule, if you feel the need to report a comment, please don't reply to it.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The plain and simple of it is that I'm not a good moderator. I have no idea what I'm doing. I wanted a community where people could post conservative stuff without it getting overwhelmed by lefty stuff, and then you could have discussions/arguments in the comment section. Bring to light stories that wouldn't normally be seen on lemmy. Since that didn't exist on lemmy, I had to do it myself.

Right now, there's a lot of toxicity, some straight up telling people to kill themselves. My whole moderation policy was basically "So long as it isn't a straight up slur, you could comment it".

You'd think it'd be simple, just ban those who do that. Well, what about those who defend baby murder? I know lefties genuinely believe it isn't, but I do. How do you tell what is horrible shit, when lefties act like horror movie monsters?

What about those who I'm like 90% sure are arguing in bad faith? I want to encourage discussions and arguments, and if I'm wrong, what then?

Me doing keyword-based moderating was a bad idea, but I am at a loss of how to do better, without breaking what this sub was supposed to be about.

I need ideas.

How should I moderate this community?

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

IMO.

Remove and warn people who promote things that are clearly anti-conservative. Eg. Defending abortion, socialism, communism, plotting to overthrow the government or election system, etc.

If they continue after warning, ban them.

There's certainly a wide range of what is considered "conservative" - and plenty to discuss and debate. But that discussion and debate can't really happen if all we're doing is debating against clearly anti-conservative viewpoints

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remove and warn people who promote things that are clearly anti-conservative.

That'd just turn this place into a boring ass echo chamber.

plotting to overthrow the government or election system, etc.

Lately that has been a conservative thing, what with Jan 6 and all.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I find rehashing the same arguments over and over to be boring, especially when they come from very different worldviews.

I'd rather discuss finer points of conservativism without people yelling about us not caring about the poor or women or other such nonsense. Because we all know that it's nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’d rather discuss finer points of conservativism without people yelling about us not caring about the poor or women or other such nonsense. Because we all know that it’s nonsense.

This I agree with, even though the policies conservatives support invariably harm the people they purport to support.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’d rather discuss finer points of conservativism without people yelling about us not caring about the poor or women

There is a problem there. The "finer points of conservatism" includes things like defunding social programs. There is no way to destroy the social safety net and not get called out for hating the poor.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, not without an echo chamber.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is what I'm talking about.

As if our current government programs are the only way to care for the poor.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As if our current government programs are the only way to care for the poor.

Charity is not enough.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

Agreed.

Government assistance is also not enough.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

Then maybe we make rules based on the structure of arguments.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think we need to get further into what is meant by a political community.

Are we really intending to set out to create an echo chamber?

Maybe the people who are anti-conservative should be allowed, so long as they are discussing conservative ideas.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Right now, the entire fediverse is a leftist echo chamber. The only way to not have this community also be a leftist echo chamber would be to not allow anti-conservative rhetoric

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only way to not have this community also be a leftist echo chamber is to add our own voices to it so it doesn’t only have one view.

Perhaps this community should be called “conservatives allowed” and the way we keep it from being an echo chamber is we don’t ban people for expressing certain political beliefs.

The difference between this place and places that become a leftist echo chamber would then be: you can say conservative things and not get banned. This prevents the set of voices from becoming skewed, as it does in places where conservatives get banned for being conservative.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Perhaps this community should be called “conservatives allowed”

Another guy did that on lemmy.world a few months ago. That sub didn't last more than a few weeks because he kept breaking instances rules over bigotry.

This prevents the set of voices from becoming skewed, as it does in places where conservatives get banned for being conservative.

Thats actually a common misconception. Aside from subs like c/leftism and such, nobody gets banned from the generic c/politics type ones for being conservative. Instead they get banned for breaking rules and bigotry/hate/aggressiveness.

The users TJD, MonoTimeToDie and Jimbolauski are good examples of this. TJD in particular has been calling users slurs left and right. One conservative user by a name I don't remember had a bit of a breakdown telling literally everyone to kill themselves in a thread they made to complain about liberals. It isn't a coincidence.

Edit; See bellow, MonoTimeToDie proving my exact point by calling me a rat.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aside from subs like c/leftism and such, nobody gets banned from the generic c/politics type ones for being conservative.

Again this same fallacy. I see this everywhere: people making assertions of the form “X does not occur”.

You’re wrong. I have been banned for being conservative from many communities not labeled as leftist.

Generally speaking if you’re about to make a statement of the form “X does not occur” just stop. There’s no way to know a thing like that, without having been everywhere and seen everything. Have some mental discipline. Recognize the limits of your own knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm using the colloquial sense of the word "nobody", therefore I was not stating it was an absolute. Have some mental discipline and ask for clarification before assuming something about what somebody is stating.

[–] MomoTimeToDie -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you for proving my point.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're describing the creation of an echo chamber.

If you hate echo chambers so much, don't go making a new one.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've floated an idea before, having "conservative only" posts. Not all of them, but allowing posters to tag their posts and I'd moderate accordingly. But that goes against what I'm trying to do here.

Maybe in the future I'll revisit it, but for now, I'm going to leave it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But that goes against what I’m trying to do here.

It's also what makes Reddit’s r/conservative effectively an echo chamber.

Honestly a big part of why this community/set of communities is interesting is because I've never seen the start of a conservative internet community before. I know the end result (r/conservative echo chamber), and I have no doubt that if this place becomes more poplar it will end up becoming a proper echo chamber as well.

But how yall get to that point is interesting.